Thor: Love and Thunder Review

I have been a fan of Marvel Films since 2008’s Iron Man. Many Marvel fans are recent additions after the Avengers Infinity War and Endgame Saga, so overall they might not be as jaded with Marvel as the original fans who have been through 27 films and countless number of TV Show spinoffs.

So, this review is by a jaded Marvel fan. For us OG fans, we have a been there, done that, seen it all attitude. We sort of feel how Thor feels in this film, there is crazy action happening and Thor is sitting there silently, contemplating his existence. I sort of felt like the same, there is a lot of good action set pieces, but not much of excited me.

Thor Love and Thunder is the 4th Thor film. Thor Ragnarok, the third film was in my opinion the best Thor film till now. This is about even with the first film, but that one had a much more emotion journey at its core. Love and thunder somehow lost out on the emotional parts, despite them being there in the film, it made me the audience, feel nothing inside.

But its not all doom and gloom, this is an unusually stand-alone Thor movie with its own self-contained villain and works well on its own. The comedy is funny, the typical absurdism of Taika Waititi is present in most scenes. But the director fails in creating a soul for the film.

Gorr The God butcher is the new villain of the film and despite casting a very talented actor, I found Gorr neither menacing nor scary. He comes off as a more tragic version Baron Zemo (from Captain America: Civil War) with a similar backstory to evoke empathy for the character, but not much is done with that sense of empathy till the climax. Unlike Civil War, we don’t connect to the villain, nor does his cause feel totally justified. Some more scenes of Gorr actually butchering Gods might have helped, but we get to see only the remains of his handy work and never actually see him in action.

The best part of the film is obviously Thor. Which is awesome, since some fans had speculated that they would let Jane overshadow him, but she really doesn’t. She puts up her best Thor impression, but nothing comes close to Chris Hemsworth’s delivery and comic timing. He is magnificent in the film, but due to his long and arduous journey, Thor is now a static character. Despite him losing someone important in EVERY single film he is in, somehow his arc felt a bit lackluster.

Coming to the new Thor in the film, Jane Foster is now also Thor. They explain this away with something the original Thor said to Mjolnir in a flashback. Jane is pretty good in this film, but she was good in the previous two also. Her role is pretty much the same as in Thor: The Dark World, but only with a bit more fighting involved. So, despite the new Female Thor gimmick, it doesn’t really add much to the film. Kat Dennings as Darcy is barely in the film and is not at all utilized, same goes for Dr. Selvig.

The big star cameos are fun in the film, but Matt Daemon does overstay his welcome by one scene too many. Russel Crowe as Zeus is again underutilized.

The soundtrack of 80’s hits is quite good and seems like Taika went through my MP3 playlist for this soundtrack…

Overall, this was a decent one-time watch. I liked the film overall without being too emotionally invested in it nor did it go all out with the action, the only two notable action set pieces are in the beginning (that one with the Ajay Devgn style Bike split was awesome) and the climactic fight was good, but nothing on the level of Thor Ragnarok’s ending which had multiple super epic moments.

Here is my issue with this new crop of Marvel films, especially post Endgame, every film feels safe and nothing truly explosive happens. Nothing truly surprising or epic, its all sort of on a similar level. This same issue plagued Dr. Strange: The Multiverse of Madness, it just did not live up to its name. Here in Thor: Love and Thunder, the story is fine, but it doesn’t have any sense of true menace or foreboding with an character who can kill Gods. He is barely an menace to our team of Godly superheroes.

Rating: 6.5/10. For Marvel fans, this is a fun one-time watch. If you don’t follow Marvel films, why bother at this point?

P.S : Stay for both the end credits scenes. They add quite a bit to the story. Unlike Dr Strange 2’s end credit scene which was an waste of time.